Growing up with siblings is something that i am glad that I had. I was surrounded by my biological siblings as well as being part of extensions of my close friends. A couple of weeks ago when Olivier was carrying the vacuum cleaner upstairs and struggled with it behind his back, Xavier has started doing this with everything he does. He calls it the Olivier special. Last night he was trying to open his water bottle behind his back, saying it was his technique. Whenever he can think of something ridiculous to do behind his back he will and call it the Olivier special. I find it amusing still because it was such a ridiculous move by Olivier at the time to think that carrying a large vacuum behind your back that is taller than you is the best way to carry something. We have a google home that cycles through photos and one came up when we were camping at Grundy Lake and we had stopped at one of the canoe camping sites. We got out and were hanging out at the site and I took a photo. Xavier remembered me laughing through that photo because Mel and Olivier were sitting there all smiling on a rock and Xavier was in front trying to block it off with a walking stick he had. Xavier remembers me thinking it was so ridicilous that he was trying to block his brother with the small stick. Oliver will also photo bomb photos that Xavier and I take, but he will pop up from a corner or something while Xavier and I are doing our traditional handshake photo. Luckily Mel has now accepted this and will take our handshake photos whenever we ask and they pop up on the Google Home. Olivier looks forward to seeing his photo bombing photos show up and it is amusing to see a nice photo and you see Olivier’s head popping out of the corner like he was awkwardly photoshopped in like a thumbnail on a YouTube video.
Olivier wanted to eat hotpot for dinner tomorrow as we have been wanting to for a long time. He specifically asked to have glass noodles, so Mel and I went out in the pouring rain searching for glass noodles. They are not easy to find, and now that I think of it, I need to make sure that I prepare them properly. My parents cheat sometimes and they willl tie them into small bundles to make them easier to handle and eat. I love my son enough to go search multiple stores in the pouring rain to find his noodles, but not enough to prep the noodles and then figure out how to tie them into neat bundles. The things that we do for our kids. You do not really realize the things you and how much you are willing to sacrifice for your kids until you are in the situation. My parents sacrificed a lot for us growing up and I am quite grateful for it, and I always thought that it would be difficult, but as I think back, you do it without a second thought and with no regrets. As it was pouring rain, I did not want to take the electrical wheelchair out and I ended up walking quite a lot through the stores as Mel and I were trying to time it so we were not outside when it was raining the hardest. My legs were quite sore and burning but at the time you do not think that you should stop. You push through to make your child happy. I always thought it was insane that my mother would individually segment oranges for the kids, or literally hold her hand up to prevent the sun from hitting their eyes in the car. When you look at it from the outside your thoughts are, wow that is ridiculous, I would not do that. Yet in the moment you do it without hesitation. A goalie parent friend of mine drove 4 hours out of town to make sure that her son had a backup helmet for a game in the evening. His mask was getting wrapped in Barrie and they were not sure whether it would be done in time, so she drove to North Bay and Vaughan to make sure that he got the model he wanted. He wears a specific model and they were unsure of the size and she went to 2 different stores. He did not ask her to do that, but she did it because she wanted to make sure that he was protecting his head and comfortable. Chatting with her, I said she was crazy for doing all of that, and she said I would do the same thing. She is probably right, I am sitting there judging her for doing all of that, but I would most likely do the same thing for my child. When the kids were little and if they fell asleep on you, you would not move or want to disturb them, and you would endure any discomfort in order to accommodate them. Watching them grow up and seeing their personalities come through was always fun. When they are young and as they age, they absorb so much knowledge and the environment that they grow up in helps to shape them.
Growing up I was lucky that I had a lot of very good parental role models. I saw parents fight and argue abuto things, but at the end of the day I saw them resolve issues and love each other. Unexpected guests at dinner meant splitting up the meal and sharing so everyone ate. Kids were not sent home because it was dinner time, they were invited to sit at the table and eat. Parents would sacrifice for all the kids, and not just their own. It was ok to disagree and to voice your opinion, as the parents would explain things to you. I learned a lot of life lessons sitting on the couches watching sports or just hanging out. Words of wisdom came daily fron the parents. Xavier likes to sit with us in the common areas upstairs and we will sit there and chat and he absorbs information. When all four of us are together they like to hear stories about things that we did, or things our family did. They will hold it against us later on and tease us about silly things that we did, or relate it to similar situations. When yoy think of nurture or nature and how it helps shape parental instincts to protect your offspring it is interesting to see how they impact you. Inherently both sides of Mel and my family have a very nurturing instinct to help out, but I think that we have also were lucky enough to grow up in an environment that encouraged it. There are some small differences as I am always open to inviting the kids friends to stay for dinner and Mel’s preference is tell them to go home since they live so close by. That is how she grew up while I grew up where we just ate and just continued on our way. The lengths that we will go for our children seem small when you are doing it, but from the outside sometimes it looks like quite a lot of work.
Quoc Hao